Voter polling sometimes gets it wrong ... sometimes dramatically so ... witness Brexit. Why might this be so? I have previously discussed "thumb on the scale" polling ... see: Polling. But let us assume that a pollster is honestly trying the read the tea leaves ... what could go wrong? One slip could be a disconnect between the polling samples and the actual voter populations. Here are some examples:
- Since, surprisingly, many voters don't speak English these days, it is doubtful that these people, even though included in the polling samples, may be able to answer the pollsters' questions.
- Obviously, last hour events can have the ability to change minds inside the voting booth.
- Election Day turnout can be affected by the weather ... particularly between the younger and older voters.
- It is quite unlikely that voter fraud can be captured in polling results ... graves or phony addresses usually don't have phones
- Polls try to discern voter enthusiasm to determine if polling opinion translates into voter action. But "likely voter" is a binary choice, whereas enthusiasm is a wide continuum. And, of course, forward- leaning turn-out operations can clearly have an impact on more passive voters.
- Honest pollsters try to stratify their political party allocations based on past results ... but these past results can be historically stale ... particularly insofar as the impact of third-party candidates.
Are the polls right or wrong that show Hellary Clinton winning tomorrow? I'll be damned if I know...
2 comments:
It is not so much who you are going to vote for but who is going to win. Oddsmakers measure that because people put something on the line. But you cannot bet on US elections in the US. See http://www.oddschecker.com/politics/us-politics/us-presidential-election-2016/winner
Well, the line across the board in the UK was Clinton 1/5 and Trump 4. You could made some money on that.
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